Global Goals, African Realities

The new global targets for improving people’s lives around the world, the Sustainable Development Goals, do much more than just extend for another 15 years the remit of the Millennium Development Goals. The SDG agenda, an unprecedented push to tackle the root causes of poverty, looks at the big picture. It embraces the need for economic development that leaves no one behind and gives every child a fair chance of leading a decent life. And it faces squarely our duty to protect future generations by limiting climate change, adopting renewable energy and managing resources sustainably.
The SDGs will only succeed, however, if they can succeed in Africa –– whose
rapidly growing population most needs the change that the agenda describes. That’s why the same concerns that drive the SDGs have been taken up over the last four years by the Africa Progress Panel and are summarized in the following report.
The Panel, led by Kofi Annan, works to ensure that Africa’s resources, creativity and dynamism are harnessed for the benefit of all Africans – including those who have been left behind by the recent economic growth surge. In successive annual reports, the Panel has laid out a roadmap for transforming the prospects of the continent’s people. The Panel’s policy recommendations have been adopted at the highest levels.